Administration Secretly Planned Denial of Due Process

The NY Times provides a detailed account of the Bush administration's secretive efforts to create "a new system of justice for the new war they had declared on terrorism."

Determined to deal aggressively with the terrorists they expected to capture, the officials bypassed the federal courts and their constitutional guarantees, giving the military the authority to detain foreign suspects indefinitely and prosecute them in tribunals not used since World War II. The plan was considered so sensitive that senior White House officials kept its final details hidden from the president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and the secretary of state, Colin L. Powell, officials said. It was so urgent, some of those involved said, that they hardly thought of consulting Congress.

The conspirators most deeply involved in the plot to subvert the Constitution included some of the President's favorite advisors: Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, John Ashcroft, and Donald Rumsfeld, among others. The Times account of their arrogant desire to deny due process to any suspected supporter of terrorism is the first of an important two-part series.